Theism and Explanation - Appeared-to-Blogly

162 Appendix
we could identify some regular patterns in human behaviour, if that behaviour
is described in broad enough terms. If a person intends to withdraw
money from the bank, he will normally enter the bank and approach the
teller. 660 If he intends to go for a long walk, he will normally put on comfortable
shoes. If he intends to read a book, he will normally fi nd somewhere
comfortable to sit. These may not be laws in the strict sense of sustaining
counterfactual claims, for they are subject to too many exceptions. 61 (We
might not be prepared to say that if a person were not to put on comfortable
shoes, he would not be intending to go for a walk.) But for many everyday
purposes such rough and ready generalisations are reliable. 62
What I am suggesting here is that even if such regularities exist, an intentional
explanation need not cite them. For there exists another constraint
on such explanations, namely the rationality principle (Appendix 1.3 and
5.2). Now one could argue that the rationality principle itself relies on a
kind of generalisation, albeit one of the broadest possible scope. It presumes
that intentional agents do act rationally. This can, if you like, be regarded
as a law. But the point I am making is that intentional explanations do not
rely on generalisations linking intentions and actions. What they rely on is
a calculation of how a rational agent in this situation would be expected to
act, given certain beliefs and desires. It follows that our expectation regarding
an agent’s behaviour is not based on any general intention–action rule,
although it may gain some support from the existence of generalisations
of this type. Intentional explanations do not depend on such laws, even if
there are laws to which they could appeal.
Causation without laws. It would be convenient if we could answer the
question regarding explanation, while remaining agnostic regarding causation.
But it is not clear that this position is defensible: it may be that the two
issues cannot, fi nally, be kept distinct. Donald Davidson certainly attempts
to keep them distinct. A simple way of thinking about Davidson’s view is
that he is trying to maintain the following propositions, which—at fi rst
sight anyway—appear to be inconsistent.
(1) Causation involves law-like regularities.
(2) Intentional explanations do not cite laws.
(3) Intentional explanations are causal explanations. 63
How does he reconcile these propositions? He does so by arguing, fi rst of
all, that we do not require a causal law in order to know that a singular
causal statement is true. 64 So intentional explanations can be causal explanations
even if they do not cite causal laws. It follow that propositions (2)
and (3) are compatible. But what about proposition (1)? Is it compatible
with (2) and (3)? Well, Davidson argues that although we do not require
a causal law to know that a singular causal statement is true, there must
exist such a law if it is true. 65 In the case of intentional explanations, such